"That's fabulous," said Murphy on hearing the news from Rell's office. "I'm appreciative. It's an absolute necessity to repair and upgrade the plant. I'm happy the state recognizes how important this is."

Since the sewer users pay the cost on bonding for the project, any grants or lower interest state loans will mean a lower cost for users.

"How much? We don't know yet," the mayor said. The Clean Water fund, administered by the DEP, provides grants and low-interest loans to finance improvements to municipal sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants.

Work in New Milford calls for expanding and modernizing the existing 1 million gallon-a-day wastewater treatment plant that is nearing capacity and upgrading technology to better remove nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater.

High levels of nitrogen lead to lower levels of dissolved oxygen in Long Island Sound during the summer.

"The equipment is going on 24 years old," said
Ken Bailey
, reatment plant superintendent.

He said it is treating 730,000 to 750,000 gallons a day and it would start to violate current effluent limits around 900,000 gallons.

Bailey said this year the authority is paying $55,000 to buy credits because it cannot meet phosphorous and nitrogen removal standards.

Rell said a total of $48.5 million in federal stimulus funding, in addition to the $270 million in state money already approved and available, will allow the state to fund all of the highly rated municipal wastewater infrastructure projects ready to proceed to construction.